NOTE: Faculty, if you are interviewed and quoted by news media, or if your work has been cited, and you have an online link to the article or video, please let us know. Contact us at news@csusb.edu.
CSUSB professor comments on Oregon hate crime laws
KGW8 (Portland, Ore.)
Jan. 16, 2020
A comment by Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, on Oregon’s existing hate crime laws was included in coverage of an upcoming trial of a man accused of fatally stabbing two men and wounding another on a light rail train in May 2017. The suspect verbally attacked to African American teenage girls with racial epithets, and two of victims had come to their aid.
In addition to murder charges, the suspect, a self-described white nationalist, is facing one hate crime charge: two counts of intimidation for his behavior toward the two teens. The intimidation charge is a misdemeanor, a sign to some observers that Oregon's hate crime law is behind the times and in need of an update.
“It reflects a bit of a bygone era when hate violence was thought to be orchestrated by organized groups,' Levin told the New York Times in an interview last year. Oregon legislators updated the state's hate crime law in 2019, motivated by another high-profile killing of a black man, Larnell Bruce Jr.
Read the complete article at “What you need to know before Jeremy Christian's trial begins.”
These news clips and others may be found at “In the Headlines” at inside.csusb.edu.